Living on food stamps is no picnic. These are the contents of Monty Pollard's freezer. The East End single father depends on food stamps for him and his 8-year-old son.

Sometimes, it seems like the world gets a little bit harsher every week.

State and federal changes coming to the food-stamp program are going to hurt the people who are least able to withstand a blow to their household budgets.

A boost from the federal stimulus program will end soon, and in Ohio, new work requirements mean food-stamp benefits could be in danger of being suspended for many.

And the U.S. House is preparing to debate a bill next week that would cut $40 billion out of the program.

These changes are happening at a time when the need for nutrition assistance has grown phenomenally.

Beginning Oct. 1, adult food-stamp recipients without kids will need to find work, attend job training programs or volunteer to stay on the rolls. It's an incentive to get people at least looking for work or preparing for work, so in that respect it makes sense.

But the unemployment rate in Ohio is still at 7 percent, so jobs are not plentiful. And many food stamp-recipients have no car or easy access to buses, so the requirement will present a hardship for them.

This new requirement will apply to about 130,000 people in Ohio and about 18,000 in Hamilton County. It is likely some of them who depend on food stamps now will "just fall off the rolls," as one Hamilton County Job and Family Services official told The Enquirer.

And that's an unnecessarily harsh result for those at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

Ohio is one of the worst states in the nation for food insecurity, essentially not knowing where your next meal will come from. Kentucky also ranks poorly.

Ohio had qualified for a federal waiver from the food-stamp work requirement, but the Kasich administration decided only 16 counties would qualify for waiving the new rules. That decision left out urban areas such as Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

The governor should reconsider that decision. He showed compassion for the less fortunate in supporting an expansion of Medicaid. This program is no less fundamental. Food stamps are not meant to provide all the nutrition one needs, but are supplemental. Nearly 2 million people in Ohio depend on them and about 850,000 in Kentucky do.

Meanwhile, Congress deleted the food-stamp program from the farm bill it recently passed, so the program is in limbo nationwide. If Congress can move the food-stamp money into a separate bill and preserve it, that may be a good result. But that's far from certain at this point.

Our congressional delegation should work to at least maintain the current food-stamp benefit, and not pass a punitive measure that would cut a lifeline for vulnerable people. ■

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EDITORIAL: Food stamps are a lifeline

Sometimes, it seems like the world gets a little bit harsher every week.